Wound Vac

Well, my wound vac just came and I'm set up to get it "installed" on Fri morning (this is for my perineal, i.e. butt, wound that has not healed after five months).

I asked my gi doc if I could go off of coumadin six weeks early to make things a bit more comfortable w/the wound vac (my periods are horrendous on coumadin), and he said yes!!! That means I'll be taking no pills at all except for vitamins, can't remember when I last had that. (The coumadin was for a blood clot found on a CT for something else a week after my surgery)

I'll be eating a lot of leafy greens the next few days to counteract the coumadin and get back to normal as fast as I can (greens = vitamin K, K stands for coagulate in German).

Fingers crossed that the wound vac works, because otherwise it's more surgery.

Good luck!! The wound is pretty small, right? Does it still bleed or have discharge?

I believe my insurance company was billed for about $4000 per month. I have decent insurance and my deductible was met so I didn't have to pay anything out of pocket.
Although I did have a problem with one so they were going to send one out. The guy came to drop off a new one and he was extremely rude to me because I asked him how to turn it on properly. Apparently the delivery people are just that, delivery people and have no idea how to use it or who to contact for questions. He ended up running to his car when I went to get the bad one and give it back. He left squealing tires and all.
Then the company tried to charge me for 2!! lol
Anyway I talked to the nurse that packs me today and she said recently they have come out with so many new dressing other than the foam. I guess they have one with litocane so it actually numbs the wound so it's not painful.

I never heard about the dressings with Lidocaine, but that would have been nice. My dressings (black sponge variety) were very painful to change, so my surgeon prescribed me liquid lidocaine. My nurse had me insert it into the wound vac hose 20 minutes before the change with an irrigation syringe so that it saturated the sponge and numbed the wound. Once numb, pulling the sponge out of my wound was painless. Before that, dressing changes made me yelp out loud.

My company is KCI also, and they sent the black sponges. I will ask about the lidocaine, thanks for the tip. I'm not sure whether mine will be better since my wound is smaller.... maybe not if sticking is the issue. Brian, that sounds awful, and have to wonder how much worse it'd be if I were still on coumadin, which causes more bleeding....

No one ever called me back today, so I will investigate costs again tomorrow. I have not yet sent back the form that I'm supposed to send back immediately to authorize billing insurance..... seems reasonable to me that I should know how much I'll be charged first (although, of course, if they don't bill insurance, they bill me.....). Tomorrow I will ask for supervisors. That'll be fun..... (at least I'm not sick while doing this).

I think I've reached some kind of cap with the ostomy supplies.... I used to have to pay 30% on them, now I pay nothing.... hoping that cap will apply to the vac too. I asked my nurse, and she thought most of her patients didn't pay at all for the vac.

In any case, thanks for the $$ info, helpful to know. Glad it was worth it to you, Blueheron. I had a visiting nurse every day for weeks at first to pack my wound, and I didn't have to pay at all for that.

Hi...I too had the wound vac for 3 weeks prior to discharge.  On blood thinners, it did occassionally bleed, and gosh I still remember how painful it was and how I yelled at the WOCN to take it easy.  Was told to press the pump for an hour prior to her arrival, but most times she just came unannounced.  When I got home, I was authorized through KCI, the vac arrived 2 weeks later.  I was also on coumadin.  Using other wound care supplies and I was healing well, I just remained on those and denied the vac.  My insurance was to be billed $3600/month.  Hope you get it soon and you start to finally heal...wishing you the best!!!

So good to hear! I hope it does heal up in a few weeks for you.
As far as the charge goes I know i've had it unplugged for more than 12 hours before the battery got low. You shouldn't really have to worry about it as long as you have it plugged in during the night.
I would just take all the dressing out before the nurse gets there and take a shower then.
You can also take a shower if you just unplug the drain tube. Just reconnect it and turn the machine back on when you get out. I've patted the tape try and it always still stuck.

As far as my wound goes it's still the same. BUT, i did start using that Microcyn solution I was telling you about. Everything I looked up online makes it seem like a miracle solution so I am hoping it works as well on me as it does everyone else. It debrides the wound and then brings oxygen to it and forms new tissue and there are no known side effects. It also kills just about any bacteria, even MRSA. A lot of people say their wounds heal within 6 weeks. Man would that be awesome!

Brian, I'm so glad you finally got the microcyn in hand, and are starting to use it. Fingers crossed. Really hope it works as advertised so you can leave this nightmare behind you. It would be awesome. Keep us posted.

It is very interesting to hear that you both took showers. I will check w/my nurse to be sure, as she was clear on that point. I took a sponge bath today, first time in a while, and it wasn't bad .... when I was taking sponge baths before, it was right after surgery, and I had all kinds of mobility, strength, and stamina issues that made it hard (or made me need help). Washing my hair in the sink was actually kind of refreshing.

I am surprised that this thing isn't as bad as I thought. So far, no issues w/disconnecting it, and I had my first time forgetting it was there; my partner had to stop me from tripping as I walked across the room w/the vac on the floor.

I was thinking of going to yoga this week. I go to this really gentle restorative class, and I also do stretching at home. There was only one pose that I regularly do that I couldn't do because of the vac (of course, I was already modified, due to the wound).

Did you find that the visiting nurses had different degrees of skill in putting on the dressing? I certainly found that w/packing the wound. I feel like my nurse did such a good job of angling the "bridge" so that the cord is not that obtrusive .... I kind of want to leave it on so the next nurse can see how she did it.... or do they all just know how to do it? I had about 15 different visiting nurses at first after surgery, and even in packing the wound there was such a difference in how well they did it..... this time is only MWF, so hopefully I won't have such variety!

Well, sigh, the visiting nurse did the dressing a lot differently, and less comfortably. She complained a lot about not having enough foam, and ordered me the medium size for next time, even though it's a very small wound (but it needs a big bridge). She made the "bridge" thicker, so it's very ropy across my butt, and the tube is lower (she said to only sit on the other butt cheek until wed). She also put drape under the bridge, because she said my skin was irritated from having the foam there last time, so I just have a ton of plastic on my butt..... I am really cranky about it all today. Just feels weird at this point to have someone taking my vitals and asking to see my stoma (I said no, not going to take off the pouch, no reason to). I had to do another intake again

The fun part was when she got out a pen to list my meds, and I'm not on ANY!

Also she said it was 4.2 cm deep, which made me worried -- biggest number in a while, but she called my nurse, who wasn't worried, said the numbers have varied a lot, depends on who is measuring, plus they might have opened it up some on Fri (love how seeing the doc often makes the wound worse....)

That is kind of funny w/the wound vac on the counter..... I've been keeping mine on the floor mostly, don't trust myself.

I'm not sure about yoga. This nurse didn't see confident that the vac would stay in place, and the location is more bothersome than before.... course, I especially need the yoga w/how stressed I'm letting myself get over all of it.... sigh.

I think I'm having a different nurse on Wed, and I will be able to tell her more of how I want her to do it....

I did check in about the shower, and my nurse thinks due to the location it's a bad idea. I did start my shower w/the dressing on today, and it was pretty easy to pull off in the shower. Nice to have a shower, though, that's for sure.

I was surprised at how awful the dressing smelled when I took it off. Wasn't prepared for that....

Well fortunately the nurse on Wed did a lot better job -- I was kind of miserable before that, with the wound vac leaking every time I went to the bathroom or moved the wrong way. Fortunately the nurse from Wed is my new regular visiting nurse, so I hope this will be OK. The angle of the bridge makes a huge difference.

Here's something kind of funny -- I was concerned because after more than 24 hours there was no fluid at all in the tube or canister, and then today I got a massage, and when I got up, the fluid was running..... my massage person was not surprised at all, but I was.....

The wound has measured 4 cm deep on both Mon and Wed..... pretty discouraging, as it was less than 3 on Friday..... guess my surgeon or nurse opened it up a bit poking around, and the wound vac has not been on long enough to reverse....

The wound vac reminds me of IV's in the hospital.... attached almost 24/7, you learn to maneuver with them, and how well they are attached makes a huge difference in quality of life (and you often have no say in who does the attaching)....

Hoghead, so sorry -- sounds very frustrating. It would be best if you could get better health care professionals, rather than having do do things yourself. Do you have a WOC (wound ostomy continence nurse)? Mine did eventually figure out how to do the dressing, and then took photos and wrote notes for the visiting nurse.

In my case, the wound vac did nothing, as I had a problem that had to be fixed surgically ... but they do help a lot of people.

Hope you can work something out. Don't forget to keep eating protein -- critical in wound healing.

Welcome.